


Shudder Not, My Love

by my_inked_asterism



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, Hermione takes care of bae, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Romione Secret Santa, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 14:19:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13168722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_inked_asterism/pseuds/my_inked_asterism
Summary: After Ron splinches, he can't quite handle the pain on his own, so Hermione is there for him. As always.





	Shudder Not, My Love

Hermione woke up at the loud thump as if hit by a cold stream of water, wand in one hand ready to attack and messy hair partly blocking her view.

With a huff, she moves the wild curls aside, enough to let her eyes see the small space of the tent fully and adjust her sight at the feeble light of the only lantern on outside the entryway, where she knows Harry is doing his turn of watch.

When she hears a groan coming from a few feet away, the fist around her wand immediately relaxes.

She turns around so quickly her neck cracks a little, “Ron?”

He’s bent down, one hand gripping  tight the nearest chair to support himself as he tries to make another step. By the way he’s panting hard, she understands it’s not going very well.

“Ron– hold on, wait.” She rushes forward and with a few strides she’s by his side. Her arm slides around his waist, his shirt already damp of cold sweat. Hermione didn't realize it was possible for Ron to be more pale than he already was - but he is now, standing there before her, looking like the ghost of himself.

Only at the very first touch of hers he seems to notice her presence. “Hermione? What are you doing here? Did I wake you up?”  He breathes out, pain audible in his voice, together with the surprise and relief due to her presence.

“Don’t worry about it,” she tells him softly and tightens the hold around his body to give him better support.

He’s about to apologise again, by spotting the guilty look on his face, but Hermione cuts him off, “Where were you heading to?”

“Bathroom.” Ron winces, trying to mask the grimace with a smile and failing in the attempt. Not that it would’ve worked the other way, anyway. Not with her.

“Ron, it’s been barely two days since you were splinched!” she scolds him, “You’re still too weak.”

“Yeah, I figured,” he groans. In unison, they start moving toward the small loo of the tent.

“You should’ve called me to help you.”

“I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Yeah, I figured,”she echoes his own words with a grin, pleasingly surprised to find one on his face too as she says so.

His arm moves to rest on her shoulders and she can tell he’s trying his best not to hurt her with his weight. She gives a gentle squeeze to his hand on her side to reassure him, and he flashes at her a soft smile in response, pressing his arm just a little harder to support himself.

Hermione walks them through the room, trying with all her mental strength to focus on supporting Ron, rather than _feeling_ Ron, or otherwise her knees wouldn’t bear both their weights. She clearly fails when, arms stinging, Ron flinches by her side and automatically grips her shoulder hard, yet careful not to hurt her. His touch is soft, the big hand covering her shoulder almost completely, and as a consequence of his movement, all her body gets immediately pulled closer to his, so warm and protective.

So how, _on earth_ , is she supposed to stay focused while being pressed against the boy she’s in love with?

She’s so deep in thought that she barely realises her feet had started moving behind Ron’s to follow him mind-absently in the loo. It’s only when he turns around to watch her with an awkward expression, brows forming two perfect ginger arcs as he waits for her to leave him his space, that she comes back to reality.

Gaping dumb-like, she takes a few steps backwards to let him close the door, “S– sorry…”

“No problem.” He looks away, his cheeks slightly red too.

“Uhm...you think you’re going to be okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah I guess I still can pee on my own.”

“That’s not what–!” she stops her protest as she sees the corners of his mouth tugging up to form a playful grin. Nothing in his tone is bitter or remotely accusatory, which makes her shoulders relax at once.

“Okay, then,” she chuckles, looking away from him. “I’ll concede you the benefit of the privacy.”

“Always knew you had a big heart,” and as he states so, a laugh hidden in his voice, he closes the curtains behind him, leaving a flashed Hermione and her pounding heart outside the loo.

When she hears the water spilling from the other side of the door, Hermione feels her spine slightly relaxing and lets herself rest her back against the nearest column.

Her eyes shutter closed only for a couple of minutes, won by the sleepiness and the struggle of the last few days. Come to think about it, all the recent events feel now like surreal to her – one moment they were at the wedding, the other they were sleeping at Grimmauld Place. One moment they broke into the ministry undercover, the other they found themselves in the middle of the forest, in a tent.

Rephrasing, under her point of view: she was dancing with Ron, she was holding Ron’s hand while sleeping, she lost sight of Ron at the Ministry and got frustrated over his fake wife and the kiss they shared – although she has to admit that was very much required and tactic of him for their mission–. Then Ron was bleeding in her hands.

Definitely not the type of climax she had hoped for.

She’s lost in her thoughts when she realises the water had stopped running for about five minutes. She rests her ear against the surface of the wooden door, careful not to make a sound, but even that way all she can hear from the other side is pure silence.

In alert, her heart hammering in worry, she knocks softly at the door, “Ron? Is everything okay?”

The response comes after a while, “Fine.”

Even by one single word she catches the tone of his voice, shaky, breathless as if he’s panting. With that thought in mind, her ear still against the door, she focuses on the noises inside the small room and finally notices the heavy breaths coming from behind it.

“Ron– can I come in?” she tries, trying to steady her voice and tune out the panic.

Another pause passes, until right when she had decided to call Harry in help the door opens slowly in front of her and the figure of Ron bent forward on the sink, fists clenched with white knuckles on the marble, finally shows up.

Hermione runs by his side in a heartbeat. With both her arms around him, she walks him to the stool on the corner and kneels before him.

His eyes are hardly open, his face sweaty and cold when Hermione’s hands move to rest on his cheeks.

She forces him to look at her but he seems on the edge of fainting, “Ron, don’t close your eyes,” she tells him, her thumbs drawing circles on his soft skin. “Ron, _please._ Come on stay with me.”

Then, like a cold wind breathing life back into his broken body, his eyes flutter open, back straightens just a little as his breathing starts getting regular. He’s still trembling, his eyes red signaling her the lack of sleep in the past few hours. She tries to dry off the drops of sweat on his temples but it’s not enough to make it stop.

“You’ve a temperature,” she states.

He shrugs, “It’s nothing.” And with another wince, he presses on his side, visibly hurting.

“What is that? What’s hurting?”

“Dunno. I think the wounds are still healing,” he groans in pain. “Does dittany take so long to have effect?”

“Usually not,” she admits, eyes already full of worry. “Let me see.”

Without thinking, he grabs the hem of the woolen sweater and, together with the only shirt underneath, he tugs them both over his head and takes them off.  His face turns even paler than possible at that movement, eyes wet in a clear attempt to fight his aching body.

It hits them just then, that this is the first time she sees him half naked, _alone_.

Indeed, Hermione has seen his bare torso more than once, but there always was someone with them. The last time happened only a couple of days ago, – the first one? She remembers it so vividly it’s embarrassing to admit, even to just herself. She recalls every detail of that late summer evening, when Ron and the twins had decided to play Quidditch in the Burrow’s courtyard; she had got out the porch and found him with no shirt on, all sweaty, and looking just _so_ fetching.

It’s been two years and she’s glad to notice that some things has changed with time. What before were only soft hints of abs, had now turned into well-defined muscles, still soft but more shaped. He’s always had large shoulders but, thanks to the sport’s practices, they got broader and thicker, just like his chest,  making his figure look even taller that what it already is.

His body wasn’t remotely the first thing that made her fall in love with him, years ago, but she really doesn’t feel like complaining about the outcome of puberty.

Then Ron coughs softly and her eyes immediately leave his torso to look back at him.

“Uhm,” she starts, mouth dry and gaping, but Ron urges forward and shows her the hurting side, making her words die in her throat.

Her eyes follow his, and that’s then she finally spots a bright purple gash right under his ribs. The pink scars on his torso and shoulders had joined the old, whitish ones caused by the Devil’s Snare in first year, creating all sort of waves on his skin that Hermione can’t stop staring. The old scars, the recent wounds, together with his pretty freckles, decorate his body like a painting, and she finds her herself gazing at him in awe for a good couple of seconds that feel like forever to her.

_Red gash. Focus._

Without overthinking it, her hand stretches as if attracted by a magnet, and comes to rest on his side, right above the almost open wound. She feels Ron inhale sharply, her breathing not much regular either, as her hand moves across the ruined, yet so soft skin of his chest and torso to analyze the damage.

It’s 10 °F outside, the little blue flames she made a couple of hours ago had started to fade and still, he’s _so_ warm under her palm. It takes her moment and a strong sense of self control to retrieve her hand and focus back on the unhealed scar.

“I’m not sure,” she mutters. “Maybe I haven’t put enough dittany for your wound to heal completely.”

He nods, “So you think it’d be sufficient to just add a few drops more and that’s it?”

“I guess?” she winces at the idea of seeing him hurting like no more than 48 hours ago, wiggling in pain because of the healing potion, but she knows that’s probably the best remedy and even if it’s not, an extra cure won’t surely be wasted in his condition. “I had never used dittany before you–“

“Hey it’s okay, don’t blame yourself,” his voice is soft, eyes tender on hers. Before she has time to reply he takes his wand out of the pocket of his pants and appeals for the potion silently. The phial darts in his hand in a heartbeat.

With a small smile of pride, Ron gently takes her hand and gives her the bottle, his eyes locked in hers the whole time. “I trust you.”

She can feel his callous hand covering hers, the contact making her hard to focus on anything else than the warm that pools in her body. The weak light coming from the  lantern above them casts shadows across his skin, the scars standing out as to making it impossible to her to look elsewhere.

“I’m … so sorry,” she whispers, looking away.

“... sorry about what?”

“The scars–“

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. I just wish I could’ve helped it, though.”

“You saved my life, Hermione.”

She flushes and shakes her head, “It was nothing.”

He takes her free hand, forcing her to meet his blue, blue eyes, now slightly circled in red for the lack of sleep but still so beautiful and tender. He looks at her like she’s the sun and he’s just been on the edge of freezing; like she’s his North Star and he’s been lost the whole time until then.

He looks at her, and for a moment, very brief and yet so deep, she believes he might feel _that much_ for her, too.

“It was brilliant,” he says simply, causing a smile to spread across her face immediately. “ _You_ are brilliant.”

She smiles at him, her look soft, eyes lingering a little too long on his features.

They look away at the same time when she clears her throat and opens the phial in her hands. The purplish liquid shines through the glass, and it’d be quite fascinating to look at if they didn’t know its effects already.

“It’s gonna hurt.” She flinches, because the thought of seeing him in pain once more under her hands makes her want to cry. Despite the good purpose, there’s really no way she’ll ever be impassable at his sufferance.

But he grins, his lips pressed together in a visible attempt to restrain a chuckle as he speaks, “Yeah I noticed.”

“Sorry that was stupid... I just mean– I really _hate_ to have to do this.” She admits, looking down again.

“I know, I’d feel the same.” Then she feels his fingers under her chin and he lifts her head slightly, flashing her with a wide and reassuring smile as their eyes meet. “Just, let’s not think about it too much, okay?” He offers.

Hermione pauses, she breathes deeply and nods at him, feeling suddenly braver and more determinate. She can feel the pain in his eyes and his struggles to hide that from her.

And she just wants him to be safe, for once. She wants the best for him, wants him to be okay, to feel _loved_ , just like he is. She wants so much for him.

So with that thought in mind, her eyes lowers on the reddish cut on his side and she carefully lets a few drops fall on it.

The effect is immediate. The moment the liquid touches his skin, Ron’s face contorts into a grimace and a suffocated “ _fuck”_ comes out from his mouth. His body stiffens as to reject the potion and a rivulet of smoke rises from the now-healed gash, signaling her the cure is working. Hermione looks away from his face, her free hand still resting on his cheeck though, and lowers her eyes to where the dittany had just made its magic, soon enough to spot the ruined skin putting itself together and turning pale red.

Unable to hold it much longer, Ron collapses forward with a groan, his head finding her shoulder at once as he anchors himself to her with both his hands on her waist. Hermione stumbles at the impact, startling initially but then gaining composure and hugging him back to support him.

She’s never hugged him with no shirt on, but she tries not to focus much on that if she wants to keep it cool and stay with lucid mind.

The feeling of his warm body against his skin makes her head go blank for a second or two. The heavy breathing he lets out against her collarbone shouldn’t feel this erotic to a friend who’s helping another friend, her fingers shouldn’t be this eager of spreading in order to touch more, to explore his back. A friend shouldn’t feel _this_ much, and yet, her heart can’t help but skip a beat as he slowly turns his head, still rested on her shoulder, and mutters her an almost silent “Thank you” in her ear.

For some kind of miracle she gets to keep her knees steady; her arms tighten the grip around his body and one hand automatically slips to his scalp, combing his sweaty hair to comfort him while she feels his breathing becoming more and more regular at every second that passes.

After a while that lasts forever to her, Ron finally straightens and pulls apart. Hermione feels cold at once and her hands take a good minute before letting go of him completely.

In unison, their looks shift from their faces and land on his new scar, still pink and in process of healing for good, but definitely in a sane state.

She caresses it, feeling proud of herself despite not having done much at all, but still enough to make him feel good.

“You okay?” She whispers, beaming at him and literally incapable of breaking the contact with his body. She’s new to the feeling and it’s already _so_ addictive.

He nods, covering her hand with his against his side. “Told you that you would do great.”

She smiles, and she’s not sure of how it happened but one foot had moved forward in the meantime and as a reflex he makes a step towards her and then they’re suddenly close, very close. So close her arm had flexed completely in front of her, her hand slipping from his ribs to his chest. So close that his regular breathing hitches her cheek and his lips could be at her eye level if he lifted his head to look straight in front of him.

They’re so close she could only get on her tiptoes and _finally_ press her mouth to his.

She should–

“I should go to relieve Harry,” Ron whispers, and her heart drops somewhere low in her stomach.

Hermione blinks several times, too many probably for making it seem natural, and still without moving away from him, she nods slowly.

He’s the first one to take a step back indeed, and she spots the goosebumps making their way through his bare torso as he does so. With one last endearing  look and a soft smile on his face, he strokes her side and turns his back to her, heading out of the loo.

He’s about to cross the entrance when he suddenly turns around, mouth gaping and cheeks weirdly flushed.

Staring at her, he opens his mouth, then closes it, only to finally opening it back again.

“You know, I could tell you about how I got this scar once the war is over.” He indicates her a tiny, white line on his belly that she didn't notice before for how small it looks compared to the long white waves decorating his arms and sternum.

She looks at it with curiosity – she knows all his scars by heart and never spotted that one in particular. She was there all the times he made them, after all.

“Is that a new one?” She asks.

“That’s the oldest one,” he corrects her simply, still smiling.

Her heart melts a bit and she nods, a wide grin spread across her face. “Yeah, you should.”

**Author's Note:**

> Huge shout out to diva-gonzo for her magical beta-ing skills. I love your advices and talking to you. 
> 
> leave comments!! and kudos!! if you liked the story, and happy holidays to everyone!
> 
> you can find me on Tumblr as @martinlydia.


End file.
